Page 33

32

South Fork, Colorado

Kara wasn’t surprised that as soon as Matt left, Riley went back to sketching. It was her crutch, her way of coping, and that was a positive. If Riley had this outlet, it would help her overcome the pain and grief of not only her childhood, but losing her friends.

Dean finished his burger and Kara was picking at her fries. They were good, but she wasn’t all that hungry. She kept running every fact she knew around and around in her mind, twisting them to see how they all fit. She felt it was important to know why now . How had Calliope found the escapees? Had she been looking for them for years, or only recently? Had they caught Thalia and tortured her for information? From what Riley said, Kara didn’t think her aunt would give up people she had saved. Yet pain was a powerful motivator.

Or, maybe, someone else gave them up. Someone Thalia had helped. Maybe Calliope set a trap. Lured Thalia in with a person who had a good reason to leave, and that person learned about the others. It was plausible.

Dean pushed his finished plate away and said to Riley, “You’ve barely eaten.”

She shrugged, didn’t look up from her drawing, her hand moving back and forth, up and down. It was hypnotizing.

“You need to keep up your strength,” Dean said. “Can I see your sketch pad?”

Riley hesitated, and Kara sensed she didn’t want to share, but then she handed it over and started eating her chicken salad.

Dean slowly flipped through the sketches. Kara glanced over. Some were very rough, as if Riley had an idea but didn’t flesh it out. A few were exceptionally detailed. She drew mostly people, though she’d interspersed bits of nature around the edges, almost as if to frame the pages. Flowers, trees, bushes, small animals.

When Dean turned the page again, to what Riley had most recently been working on, Kara did a double take.

The sketch was of her and Matt sitting at the table across from each other. While drawn from Riley’s perspective sitting between them, it was as if she wasn’t there, as there were only two place settings. The background was rough, a few swipes and shadings of the pencil, but it was clear they were in a rustic lodge with natural lighting coming in and hitting the table.

She and Matt were looking at each other. Exchanging...something. Though they weren’t touching, the picture seemed intimate—too intimate. She had a half smile on her face, Matt’s expression was softer than Kara generally thought of him.

Suddenly, she didn’t want anyone looking at this picture, as if someone had caught her and Matt in a private moment. This hadn’t happened—she and Matt always kept their behavior professional when they were working in public. If Catherine saw this, the shit would hit the fan. Kara didn’t want to deal with the fallout from that. It exhausted her just thinking about it.

But clearly Riley saw what they didn’t want anyone to see.

Dean cleared his throat and turned the page. Dammit. He saw the same thing.

At the next page Dean asked, “Riley, who is this?”

He turned the pad and Riley said, “My mother.”

The sketch showed a woman practically floating on the page in a gown, like an angel. Though there were only a few marks outlining the body, they could see a curvy woman, the gown flowing around her. Her face was all sharp angles, beautiful and grotesque at the same time. As if looking at her one way, you saw the beauty of her angular face, her large eyes, her high cheekbones, her lush lips. Another glance the cheeks looked sharp enough to cut, the mouth about to bite, the eyes filled with a dark ominous glow.

But there was no doubt the hair was snakes, like mythological Medusa. Long, flowing, coiling, ready to strike.

Riley had drawn her mother larger than life, beauty and cruelty leaping off the page.

Kara didn’t have to be a shrink to understand the underlying emotions of how Riley perceived her mother.

“Can I have it back?” Riley asked.

Dean reluctantly handed the sketch pad back to her. “Some of those sketches may be helpful.”

“Okay,” she said. “Can we do this upstairs? I’m uncomfortable here. I feel like I’m in a fishbowl.”

Kara looked around. The lobby was large and open with three-story ceilings, and a wall of windows on the western face of the building. Behind the windows was a deck spreading out far and wide—Kara knew from the brochure in the rooms that the deck was often used for weddings and wedding receptions. It was a nice place for that sort of thing. Not today, however, as the gray skies were darkening and it looked like the weatherman was right and they’d be getting snow tonight.

No one seemed to be paying much attention to them in the lobby. Most of the guests were coming in from an early afternoon of skiing, as wind had started to pick up, swirling the snow in the field between the lodge and the towering mountain.

Were Kara’s instincts fuzzy? Had she missed something?

She glanced at Dean. He didn’t act any different, his eyes on Riley.

“If it makes you more comfortable,” he said.

Riley got up first, her sketchbook tucked under her arm. She started walking toward the central staircase, but Kara quickly caught up to her. “Stick with me,” she said.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be trouble. I just got this...feeling.”

“Like you were being watched?”

Riley nodded.

Kara definitely believed in those kinds of feelings. She steered Riley through the restaurant and lobby. When they passed the bar built into the opposite wall of the restaurant, Riley froze.

“Keep moving,” Kara said firmly, practically pushing her up the stairs.

Riley stumbled. “Daddy. Anton.”

Her voice was a whisper, faint and hollow and tinged with fear.

“Now,” Kara said. She looked for Dean; he was still at the table reading something on his phone. What the fuck?

Her job was to protect Riley; Dean should have been behind them, he could have gone after the threat.

She followed Riley’s gaze. A man in his late forties with dark hair, a thick moustache, and piercing brown eyes stared at them. He had a beer on the bar in front of him, but it was barely touched. He didn’t make a move, didn’t so much as flinch, when Kara stared back.

She had two options. Get Riley to safety then return; he would likely be gone. Or alert Dean and hope he could apprehend the suspect while she got Riley upstairs. The odds were slightly better for the latter option, so Kara put her fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly.

Dean immediately looked at her, confused but alert.

“Anton, bar,” she shouted as she put herself between Riley and the bar and pushed her charge up the stairs.

Dean jumped up, then Kara lost sight of him as she focused on getting Riley to Matt’s room. As they started on the second set of stairs she heard a commotion echoing below. She pulled out her phone and hit Matt’s number. As soon as he answered she said, “Situation in the lobby, open your door!”

She didn’t wait for a response, but pulled Riley around the bend and down the hall, keeping her on the inside. Kara spared a glance down into the lobby, but she couldn’t see the bar from this angle.

The door at the end of the walkway opened and Matt stepped out, hand on his holstered gun, face set. Michael stepped out and ran down the hall toward Riley and Kara, then escorted them into the room.

“Riley saw Anton from Havenwood. Watch her,” Kara said, then immediately turned around and ran back down the hall.

“Michael, go,” she heard Matt say, “I got her.”

The door closed, and Michael sprinted to catch up to her.

“He was sitting at the bar, I don’t know how long,” Kara said as they ran down the stairs. “I alerted Dean.”

Kara glanced at the bar. The beer was there; Anton was not. She shouted at the bartender, “Don’t touch that glass!” as she and Michael headed to the main door.

She didn’t see Dean anywhere. Before they reached the entrance, the doors opened and two staff members were escorting Dean back into the lobby. He was unsteady on his feet and blood dripped down his face.

“Truck. Waiting out front,” Dean said.

Kara and Michael ran outside. The icy cold hit her hard; she only wore a lightweight blazer to conceal her weapon. They didn’t see Anton or a vehicle leaving. But to the right of the second set of doors was blood in the snow and a scuffle of footprints.

“Well, shit,” Kara said and went back inside.

Michael followed. “I’ll talk to security.”

“Get that glass on the bar, he drank from it. We might get prints, DNA if we’re lucky.”

She walked over to where Dean was sitting in the lobby. He had an ice pack on his head.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“I pursued the white adult male you identified as Anton as he exited the building. Told him I was FBI and to stop. He didn’t. When I opened the second set of doors, I saw a dark green Ford truck idling outside, but didn’t see the suspect. I was then hit from the right. I grabbed him, but he hit me again and jumped into the truck. I couldn’t pursue, but noted a female in the driver’s seat and Colorado license plates. My vision was cloudy, and there was exhaust distorting the numbers. Maybe security has a good shot of the driver and plates.”

“Michael’s on that.” She texted him the information about the truck.

She wanted to yell at Dean for not falling in step behind her when she got up. She had assumed he would. But he wasn’t Matt or Michael or even Sloane, who was a rookie but would have instinctively risen as a security precaution. Dean wasn’t part of their team, and she had become so confident with her team and how they worked together that it threw her off.

She wouldn’t let it happen again.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, and she was surprised he apologized. He was her superior, Matt’s superior, and she didn’t expect an apology. She expected him to justify himself or not address it at all. “I was making notes—I should have gone with you. I thought Riley was just making an excuse for not wanting to talk about her mother.”

Riley was odd, but Kara was beginning to trust her instincts. She went back to the table and looked from that angle. Where Anton was sitting couldn’t be seen from Riley’s place at the table; Kara would have had a partial view of him, but she wouldn’t have recognized him.

Now she would never forget his face.

She called Matt to inform him of the situation.

“Tell Dean to have the hotel medic look at him, if they have one. Otherwise he should go to the hospital.” Matt sounded irritated. She didn’t blame him.

“How’s Riley?”

“Frozen. She’s sitting on the couch, not talking.”

Riley was a fighter, but seeing Anton had terrified her into inaction. Kara had practically pushed her all the way up the stairs. Whatever happened in Havenwood had deeply affected Riley. Maybe abuse, physical or psychological. Maybe another type of violence. Kara needed to find a way to shake her out of that fear, but didn’t know how. Riley’s response could be the difference between life or death—for Riley, or for someone on Kara’s team.

“Matt,” she said, keeping her eyes on the room, wondering if there was someone else from Havenwood here, watching, “Riley identified the man at the bar as Anton. If they didn’t know she was alive before, they know now.”

“Sloane is on her way back to help with security. George Stewart can stick with Jim and help him with whatever he needs at the Morrison house and morgue.”

“Good,” Kara said.

“Kara, I think you should come back to the room,” he said, his voice low. “Riley responds best to you. You might be the only one to convince her to pick up her pencil and draw us Anton’s face, and anyone else her mother may have sent.”

“Five minutes,” she said and ended the call.